


House call

by ragnehild



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Medical Procedures, Pre-Canon, eventually, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28158111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragnehild/pseuds/ragnehild
Summary: It's hard to make a name for yourself in Night City, no matter who you are. Especially when you're a rookie ripperdoc trying to cover all the bases that Trauma Team doesn't give a damn about. He learned a lot back then - about other people, about himself, and about medicine, but the most important thing that came out of it was a simple promise to himself, a breaking point signifying that he has found himself a spot in the city's food chain - from now on, he won't be making house calls.Luckily for Viktor, these days are far behind him, but when a call comes, he still packs the bag.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have I dedicated over 30h to Cyberpunk 2077 within a little under a week? I shall neither confirm nor deny. Point is, I absolutely love Viktor and would love to see more of him. Figured if I can't have more of that kind of content in-game, I should just go make my own. 
> 
> Originally I intended for this to be a one-shot, but at some point decided it might work better as a 2-3 chapter piece. 
> 
> Standard disclaimer, English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes or questionable wording choices.

When Viktor closed the deal with Misty on the space for his brand new clinic, he told himself he’d never go on a house call ever again. That was one of the reasons to finally get himself an actual clinic in the first place. It was hard enough to convince Misty that yes, what she called a ‘friend discount’ on rent really wasn’t necessary, but what turned out to be even harder was backing away from that statement after the first month of burning through the last of his savings to properly equip the damn place, every europenny of which he earned beating the living shit out of other people for the crowd’s entertainment, or, at the very end of his professional career, getting the living shit beaten out of him more often than he’d be willing to admit. He wouldn’t say he was surprised, but he’d still clench his teeth at how much of a money shredder equipment and basic setup was. Investing in cyberware to install without a baseline clientele was a stretch on his part, but worth it in the long run, or at least that’s what he was telling himself. In the beginning, he was a new face on the ripperdoc stage, without many people who could vouch for his skills or spread the word around Night City. He had to build that up over the years, from client to client, until he arrived at this ambiguous, albeit comfortable position he found himself at now - a bit too expensive for sex workers in dire need of a new leg, arm or face, but at the same time not fancy enough for corpos looking to spend their eurodollars on something extra their company-funded tech package didn’t cover.

He didn’t mind that, not really. The clinic was paying its own rent at this point, with more than enough still left for his personal needs. Most often he chose to invest it back into the clinic and get something like a brand new Kiroshi straight from a retailer without worrying whether the money would find its way back to him. He didn’t need the extra cash, didn’t need to go the extra mile, both figuratively and literally, to make a living. Just a few years back, right after finishing his apprenticeship, he found himself without a stable spot to practice his newfound profession and eventually resolved to the only way he could earn those killer fees back - responding to calls from patients too far gone to drag themselves to the closest ripperdoc. That added an additional layer of time and money, driving around the city from point A to point B, and then C and D and so on, playing those little fetch quests that required him to lurk in the parts of the city he’d rather avoid. That was the worst part - he had to grab his bag and go whether the patient needed him to be at that moment, be it next to a stinking, muddy trash container in a dark alley or a cockroach-infested megablock that had a mean-looking gang member at every corner, just waiting for shit to go down. In hindsight, Viktor would sometimes do more harm than good, dealing with emergency cases as a barely qualified ripper, but at least the patients didn’t die right then and there, whatever was left of their cyberware snatched by someone, a brand new owner who’s been eying a potential update. Fucking vultures, always lurking around, walking in simultaneous with risking getting a bullet as well, but he never let it scare him.

His boxing training sure came in handy in times like this.

Ah, how young he was back then. How inexperienced, mostly putting together the people and their technologies, salvaging what was left to salvage and removing everything else while trying to keep the damage to a bare, necessary minimum. At least one good thing came out of it - he had to learn damn fast and eventually installing new pieces of chrome seemed like a breeze compared to removing the twisted, shattered, or melted bundles of metal and wires that these tiny works of genius have turned into. It was a grisly job, one that made his current clinic in a run-down garage akin to a luxury. In many ways, it was. For one, it was much calmer, working within his own, controlled environment, with most appointments scheduled in advance. A real, damn luxury.

And so he made use of that luxury and just as Misty gave him the keys, complete with a plush, aggressively pink charm and a small, hand-carved figurine of something he could never quite discern, to the rusty gate that opened his soon to be clinic, he promised himself he’d never do a house call again. But as years went by, he came to realize that where there are friends, there are exceptions and V was one of the few people he was willing to make exceptions for.

  
It’s not like he expected it, either. Misty would later say that she knew something bad would happen that day, had a premonition or a gut feeling or whatever she called it, but he’d just shake his head and give her a grin. Sure, Mist. Sure.

Viktor didn’t believe in things like this, has seen too much in too little time to give his faith to anything higher than his own hands, be it corporations, capitalism, religion, or fate. He didn’t need to, having built enough skill and life experience that there was no need to extend his trust beyond that.

  
At first, V didn’t even call, she texted him instead, a scrambled collection of letters that must’ve lost their meaning at some point on their way from her brain to her fingers. One after the other, they kept coming and Viktor could swear that he could feel V’s agitation seeping through the screen. The doctor just frowned and found V’s number on the contact list, turning the volume up a bit on his interface before he unknowingly started to make a mental list of what he might need to put in his worn-out gym-turned-medical bag that he still kept somewhere on the bottom of one of his cupboards. The melody of an awaiting connection kept playing in his head, each note adding a drop to his slowly increasing pool of anxiety. Just as he thought she wouldn’t pick up, that a kind, robotic voice would send him straight on his merry way to voicemail, the music abruptly stopped, signifying an ongoing phone call.

‘V? You okay?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice casual, the way you’d ask a friend how they’re doing after an all-night bender. Maybe that’s what happened, maybe the merc just had more than a little too much booze and was drunk texting whoever was high enough on her contact list.

  
All that answered him was dull silence, interrupted from time to time by a muffled sounds. As Viktor opened his mouth to ask again, V’s voice came, but not the one he knew, not the cocky blunder with curse words heavily woven into it, but a raspy, shaky whisper. If V’s portrait photo hasn’t been clearly visible in his open calls window, he could swear it must be someone else.

‘Vik, can...can you…’ a cough, much wetter sounding than a healthy person’s cough should sound. And something metal clanking on the floor. ‘Can you come? I’m…’ and another one, much longer than the other, followed by a few long, raspy breaths.

  
‘Where are you?’ Viktor asked, already pulling his old bag from under the counter. There it was, just as he remembered it. Even the blood spatters and grease that just wouldn't come off, having bitten their way into the material, were still there.

‘My place’ she just said, or rather spat out as another coughing fit overwhelmed her.

‘Hang in there, okay? I’ll be there in ten” he said before realizing that she has abruptly ended the call before he could even finish the sentence. He didn’t care about such a minor offense at the moment, looking over his equipment and taking whatever he may need with him, filling the bag with all kinds of medical tools that might come in handy to the point where the zipper just barely closed.

His initial anxiety was replaced by adrenaline, a familiar autopilot kicking in. V didn’t need him to worry his brains out, she didn’t need him panicked or unsure, what she needed right now was an experienced doc who could get the job done, even if he didn’t exactly know what the job was just yet. He put the bag over his shoulder, not letting its weight drag him down, and headed out, jumping two stairs at once. He didn’t go through the shop, not wanting to alarm Misty or be flooded by her questions, and took a short way out through the gate on the inner yard, finding himself on the busy street, full of people despite how late it already was. He didn’t stop to contemplate it, instead just hopped on his bike and slammed the gas handles, praying to a God he didn’t believe in that an NCPD patrol wouldn’t stop him for various traffic misdemeanors. He parked right outside the megablock where V’s apartment was in and practically ran up, navigating between the groups of people that were clearly enjoying their night out, chatting with neighbors or grabbing a bite from one of the many vendors that had their stall in one of the halls. The smell of old grease, fried fish and heavy spices hit his nostrils right along the nauseatingly sweet scent of weeks old trash and drying paint as he made his way through this labyrinth of a building.

For a second he was afraid that he had made a wrong turn or run through one flight of stairs too much, but the familiar, greenish gleam of a travel station was enough of a confirmation that he was indeed heading the right way. He finally stood in front of V’s door, a steel imbued construction identical to any other, not even a number plate in sight, but an angrily red dot indicating that the lock was closed. He raised the hand to knock and when he heard no answer, not even a single sound from inside the apartment, he felt another tingle of anxiety, but he pushed it to the back of his head. He knocked again, harder this time, with more urgency, as if the door mechanism gave a damn since V apparently didn’t hear him. He cursed under his breath and then it hit him, a solution so simple that he’d burst out laughing if he wasn’t feeling so on edge.

He still had it, after all. The first (and only) real piece of cyberware he got for himself, a simple lock opener that came in handy so many times in his early days, saved so many lives. He thought about uninstalling or even taking it out entirely so many times, after all, there were regulations about these things these days that he didn’t quite meet, but who cares. Flooded with relief that his sense of lawfulness has dulled into a table knife over the years, he started working the lock and after a mere few seconds he heard a familiar sound, identical all over the city in places like this. The dot changed to green and he waved his hand in front of it, triggering the mechanism opening the door. As he rushed into the pitch-black apartment, the blinds closed shut, V’s silhouette sprawled out on the floor, barely visible only because of the flickering light creeping in from the corridor, Viktor sighed.

  
He hated doing house calls. But damn, the things he'd do for that kid.


	2. Chapter 2

Through his career, he’s been to a lot of places of varying degrees of decay, from the long-abandoned hotels subjected to evergoing gang disputes to the city’s garbage dump stretching miles upon miles outside of the city, a sea of trash and metal, often twisted into unrecognizable shapes, piling up into mountains, where every step meant a very real risk of slipping and impaling himself on a rust-bitten shard. Hidden in between were those unfortunate enough to end their journey in a place like this, abandoned by their rivals or hitmen too lazy to attempt hiding a body within the guts of the city. If they had a working car, and almost all of them did, it was way easier to just drive whatever was left of their target and dump it to be devoured by rats and whatever else evolved enough to survive in a place like this. Sometimes they wouldn’t even bother to check if the person they were leaving there was actually dead, hence the reason why he’d sometimes get calls begging him to fish a guy (or lady) down on their luck out. He found himself digging through trash more often than not, futile in his attempts to pinpoint his awaiting patient’s location. When he was starting out, the thought of giving up his search wouldn’t even cross his mind, he’d spend hours looking, even dragging along metal cutters with him, figuring they’d come in handy. They probably would’ve if not for the fact that he often wasn’t even able to find the person who called him, localization data too patchy to give him a solid lead on where he should even start. 

After a while, when he established himself and lost some of his rookie idealism, he put in a disclaimer that he wouldn’t go trash diving anymore, no matter the pay. A small step, but even at the beginning he tried to have standards. 

V’s apartment was far from Night City’s biggest trash dump, but something about the chaos within it reminded him of that when he switched on the lights. As if the hurricane had swept through the place, some of the furniture was tilted over, a pile of clothes, dangerously balanced on an overfilled laundry basket, threatened to collapse and spill over at any moment. A half-finished box of noodles laid abandoned on the counter, accompanied by a mosaic of pills from a knocked over bottle. 

Viktor found V curled up on the floor next to her bed, wearing a washed-out Samurai t-shirt and sweatpants, covers dragged along with her halfway between the linoleum and the mattress. He could barely see her face from the way she was bundled up. V didn’t move upon hearing his footsteps, didn’t even flinch when he kneeled next to her and reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. 

The ripper dropped the heavy bag at his side and gently cupped V’s face in his hands, wincing at how burned up the woman’s skin was, and turned it so he could take a quick glance. V’s eyes were rolled far back into her skull. Viktor started to have an idea of what he was dealing with here, has seen the wreckage that offensive hacking can cause many times before. They usually started out slow, identical to a bad case of flu but then, if dismissed, proceeded to stir fry one’s brain until not much was left. 

Viktor opened his bag and pulled out a small, remote biomonitor. It took a few seconds to fully calibrate, but eventually, the screen lit up.

‘V, can you hear me?’ he asked, not counting on her to answer. 'I’m going to connect your personal link now and see what’s going on in there, okay?' he reached for her wrist, already feeling her racing pulse, and connected it to the device. While it was loading, Viktor propped it up on the wall and grabbed V to lay her on her back to make the job easier for himself, and pulled out a few small gel-filled Ice-Pax. He knew she probably needed more, but those will have to do for now. 

Just as Viktor placed two under her arms and another on her groin, the monitor beeped. He reached over her to grab it and swiftly ran a basic diagnostics program, but save for the things he already knew, it didn’t spew out anything interesting. She was vastly overheated and her blood pressure shot up to a point where an angrily red window kept popping up to inform him of a 72% percent chance of an incoming cardiac event, but he dismissed it for now. Instead, Viktor chose a different angle and ran a more advanced version of the program, letting it comb through V’s frontal cortex and RAM.

‘There’s the rub’ he hummed to himself as the program kindly highlighted the results. He let out a long sigh. If V had come to see him a day earlier, he’d fix it in five minutes and she wouldn’t even notice, but now she’ll be out of commission for at least a week before she can even get out of bed. He’ll have to tell her a thing or two about responsibility, not that she’d listen to him anyway. Patients never did, but it still might be worth a shot. 

Viktor typed a few commands to enclose the scrambled code from her RAM and before pulling out V’s personal link, copied her real-time vitals chart onto his interface. After it appeared within his field of vision, he pulled out a worn-out connecting cord that he’s been promising himself he’d replace for ages now and inserted it into the neural port at V’s nape to get a better working field, now that he knew what the problem was. RAM damages were problematic in their very nature but pretty easy to fix once caught, not much of his medical knowledge needed. Viktor simply fired up what ripperdocs tended to call a “palate cleanser” and let it do the work, putting back together what the bug has managed to break.

While the program was fixing up V’s tech, Viktor got to work on her body. Flipping the ice packs, he took a quick glance at her temperature and was glad to see that it had started to slowly go down, followed by her pulse and blood pressure, all three leaving the life-threatening territory. None of them were quite to his liking just yet, but at least now Viktor was sure V would pull through. Reaching into his bag, he eventually found an IV set, but decided it’d be better to move her onto the bed first, sparing himself all the gymnastics with the tubing and cables. Minding the biomonitor still plugged into her, Viktor leaned down to lift V and put her on the bed. She was quite heavy, the dead weight of her limp body adding to the feeling, but he didn’t even break a sweat carrying her. Taking the covers from the floor, he put them on her, straightening the wrinkled material intuitively. 

Having done that, Viktor grabbed her arm and carefully inserted the needle. To his relief, it went in on the first try. Glad he didn’t need to poke her any more than necessary, Viktor looked around and realized that V didn’t have anything even remotely resembling an IV stand, but when he looked up, he noticed a small hook, probably remains of a poster frame, conveniently placed over the bed. Stepping up on the edge of the bed frame, he placed the bag there, and after making sure that everything was in place, let it drip. That should do the job, maybe paired up with a shot of dopabenzamine if she won’t improve in the next few hours.

Viktor let out a deep sigh of relief, feeling as if he’s been holding his breath ever since V called. Biomonitor’s estimated time kept shifting but eventually settled on six hours and twenty-three minutes. Viktor nodded to himself and turned around to take another look at the mess that V’s apartment has turned into. He leaned down and reached under the covers to grab the unpleasantly warm ice packs, and throw them in the freezer, wondering if he should clean up, just a little bit. Would V get mad at him for snooping around? Then again, she’ll need a few days to recover and this ever-growing mess around her surely won’t help. Or should he ask Misty? They were closer, he was pretty sure that she’s been over at V’s place at some point. 

Maybe he shouldn’t be overthinking this. Just a little bit, he told himself as he gathered the pills spilled on the counter, inspecting the label while he was at it. Strong shit, impossible to get by simply waltzing into a pharmacy. Viktor made a mental note to ask about it later, just to make sure that V doesn’t swallow these like candy. Of course she doesn’t, he reprimanded himself. She’s an adult, a stupid, reckless one, but an adult nevertheless. It still won’t hurt to bring it up, though. 

He put it back into the medicine cabinet and returned to the kitchen to deal with the noodles, and since they were on the verge of no longer being edible, he just tossed them into the trash can, along with other unfinished takeout he found in various places around the apartment. He didn’t want to snoop through V’s things, so he just folded the clothes that were sprawled all over the floor and couch and put them in a neat pile. When he was done, the place looked somehow presentable, so he settled on the couch opposite V’s bed. 

She appeared to be sleeping, although far from soundly. No longer completely unconscious, she kept tossing and turning, her face grimacing as her recovering brain no doubt served her a concoction of fever dreams. 

Just as Viktor leaned down to relax a little, he heard a ping of an incoming text message. He pulled it up

**Misty**

>that lady from Biotechnica is here to see you again, but you don’t seem to be in, what should I tell her?

>Tell her to fuck off

>I’m at V’s and have to stay for a few more hours, she screwed herself up real bad this time

  
>oh no what happened>

>?

>I’ll tell you all about it later, I got it covered for now

He fully expected Misty to call him, alarmed, but apparently, he managed to reassure her just enough. He leaned back and closed his eyes, just for a second, but must’ve dozed off at some point, exhausted after over twenty hours without a chance for a shuteye. When he woke, a groan escaped his lips as the stiffness of his neck hit him with full force. 

That’s what you get for sleeping sitting up, old man, he told himself as he reached to grab his glasses off the floor. They must’ve slipped off at some point during his nap. Viktor stood up and stretched until he heard his joints crack. Still tired, he rubbed his eyes in a futile attempt to wake himself up and walked up to V’s bed to check on her. When he reached for the biomonitor to check the progress bar and see how long he’s been sleeping, V moved slightly. She opened her eyes and scanned the room, looking right over him, and furrowed her eyebrows. Finally, she looked up and saw Vik standing next to the bed and her expression went from blank to confused. 

‘Vik? What…’ V cleared her throat. ‘What are you doin’ here?’

‘You don’t remember calling me?

‘Not quite’ she bit her lip, trying to gather her thoughts. ‘It’s a bit of a blur. I was feeling like absolute shit after that last job, thought I could just sleep it off.’ she said quietly, propping her head upon her elbow. ‘I didn’t expect it to grow into...whatever that was.’

“A neurogenic cybervirus is what that is. Invisible until it starts to fry your brain. You gave me quite a fright’

“Fuck. I knew something was off about that netrunner, after she...eh, nevermind. Vik..how long have you been here anyway?

‘Uh,’ Viktor took a quick glance at the biomonitor ‘seven hours, give or take?

‘Fucking hell. I’m..’ she looked at him apologetically. ‘I’m gonna pay you back. What’s your house call fee again? I don't remember it being listed…’

‘Nah, it’s okay. I usually don’t do house calls, so consider that a favor. Just promise me that when you feel something’s off after a job, you’ll come to see me right away. There’s a lot of real vile stuff out there and you won’t even know until it gets you. That’s what you have me for.’

‘Sure, _dad._ You can spare me the lecture' she chuckled. ‘But for real, Vik. Thank you.’ 

‘No problem, really.’ he grabbed the biomonitor. Four minutes left. ‘You’re gonna feel like you were hit by a truck for the next few days, but there shouldn’t be any lasting damage. I’ll check up on you in a few days and send in Misty or Jackie in the meantime to help you out since I’d rather you didn’t get out of bed more often than necessary. Next time you see me, consider getting that new set of optics and a gun grip. Might save your ass next time someone attempts to do you dirty like his.’

Something akin to a smile appeared on her face. ‘Doctor’s orders?’

‘Doctor’s orders.’ 


End file.
